Choose
We make a lot of decisions, every day. A huge proportion of those are tiny, and we make many of them unconsciously. Occasionally a big one comes along, and we may spend hours or days or weeks or longer, making up our mind. But seldom, I think, do we stop and think about how it is that we actually have the power to choose, to decide.
This is how:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:26-27)
The power to choose is shown in the word “dominion”. Dominion is control. We often calls it “free will”. It is a characteristic of God Himself, and as He says in this passage, He makes the man and woman in His own likeness, specifically in this way. He gives them control of what He has made. What a gift!
The gift does come with a condition, however. This is a concept familiar to us. No one disputes the right of a donor to put conditions on their donation, to a charity for example. God gave the man and woman life, and gave them the whole world. With a condition:
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:16-17)
The dominion suddenly requires a decision. In fact, it’s meaningless to say they have dominion, the power to choose, if there’s no choice to be made. God already had servants who simply carry out His will without the ability to choose. We call them the angels, and they exist solely to do God’s will. (Hebrews 1:7 & 14, quoting Psalm 104:4 and referring to Psalm 103:20-21)
The restriction God puts on the first man and woman is what truly gives them dominion. They must now choose. Do they believe God means what He says? Will they honor Him by choosing to obey the command? God has shown He loves them, in the gift of the planet and its contents, and entrusting them with the power to choose. Will they show they love Him in return in the choice they make?
We know the answer, of course. It was God who created the serpent which posed the choice. Without it there would be no choice, therefore no actual dominion. God forced them to choose, and as we know they chose disastrously.
What of us? We, the first couple’s descendants, inherit the power to choose. What had been pure (“very good” as God declared it) was now corrupted, and we inherit that too. It’s in our nature now, bent toward choosing badly, toward gratifying ourselves rather than honoring the Creator.
The requirement to choose remains. Moses pleads with the people of Israel, and by extension with us:
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days. (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)
God continues to present the choice to us. He requires that we choose. To love Him, obey His voice, hold fast to Him, and live forever…or love our attractive, delicious sins, and die. Our choice.
Love, Paul